Opponents of caste discrimination say it is no different from other forms of discrimination like racism and hence should be outlawed. In vetoing the bill, officially called Senate Bill 403 or SB 403, Newsom cited existing laws that already prohibit ancestry discrimination, which he said made the bill "unnecessary." U.S. discrimination laws ban ancestry discrimination but do not explicitly mention a ban on casteism. The caste system is among the world's oldest forms of rigid social stratification. The Dalit community is on the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system and members have been treated as "untouchables."

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Persons: Carlos Barria, Gavin Newsom's, Newsom, Suhag Shukla, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Soundararajan, Samir Kalra, Kanishka Singh, Mary Milliken, Grant McCool, Mark Porter Organizations: REUTERS, Activists, University of California, Hindu American Foundation, American Foundation, Equality Labs, Migration Policy Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, Amnesty, MeToo International, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, California, U.S, Berkeley, United States, South, India, Orange County, Washington